Articles Tagged withConviction

Most people in North Carolina rely on their car to get them from one place to another. While there may be public transportation options, rideshare options, or any other type of transportation, for the most part, people get around by car. Imagine being completely dependent on a car to get you to work, school, or even social events. What happens if you suddenly do not have a license anymore? For those individuals who are arrested and/or convicted for driving while impaired (DWI), that is a sobering reality. Often times, after an individual is arrested and charged for a suspected DWI, he or she faces immediate license revocation, even without the conviction. An arrest and/or charge is enough to revoke a license.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “If I have an outstanding warrant, what should I do?”

What started as an ordinary traffic stop turned into a felony charge for one North Carolina man. Keith Sellars was driving home from dinner when he was pulled over by a cop for running a red light. While the cop was running Sellars’s license and conducting a background check, it became evident that there was a warrant out for Sellars’s arrest, according to the New York Times.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”

It can sometimes seem like we have seen it all before. This is especially true in the criminal law world, where crimes are seldom novel, but often sad cycles continually repeating themselves. Though this is true in some cases, a recent prosecution in Massachusetts demonstrates that individuals can still find new ways to run afoul of the law and, when that happens, it can raise important questions about how these groundbreaking cases ought to be handled.

It’s been more than 10 years in the making, but the criminal case revolving around Bill Cosby came to the end, rather quietly, over the weekend. Though people have speculated for some time that Cosby had behaved inappropriately if not outright criminally with many dozens of women over the decades, it wasn’t clear whether any prosecutor would be able to make charges stick, especially so many years after the incidents were alleged to have occurred. One in Norristown, Pennsylvania tried and ultimately failed to convince a jury that Cosby was guilty of aggravated indecent assault.

Back in 2010 a North Carolina man was convicted of a crime and given a suspended sentence. Now, nearly seven years later, his lawyers are preparing to argue their appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. What did the man do to warrant such a fuss? He signed up for a Facebook account.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “If I have an outstanding warrant, what should I do?”

To many people, involuntary commitment in a psychiatric facility seems like the equivalent of jail when it comes to restricting your freedoms; for some, it could be considered even worse. However, the majority of the N.C. Court of Appeals feels differently, with a divided panel recently ruling that a man who was involuntarily committed after he tried to kill himself was not in custody for Miranda warning purposes.

When Judge Arnold O. Jones II asked a Wayne County Sheriff’s Deputy to dig around in Jones’ wife’s text message records between her and another man, the deputy didn’t tell him no. The deputy didn’t tell him he would need a warrant for accessing such information. And the deputy definitely didn’t tell Jones that he also worked as a member of an FBI gang task force.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “Can I be arrested without evidence against me?”

The “People You May Know” section on Facebook is one of those love-it-or-hate-it features. Like so many other aspects of social media in an age where the law recognizes almost all social platform information as public domain, the friend suggestion tool raises privacy concerns for some people. Facebook essentially advertises your social media presence to people you are not—and perhaps for good reason—already friends with.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “If I am charged by campus police could I still face jail time or probation?”

The “Ban the Box” movement appears to be picking up steam across the country as more and more states pass measures aimed at removing a hurdle that often discourages those with criminal records from even trying to find work. President Obama has now waded into the issue, moving on the federal level to end the practice of pre-screening for previous criminal infractions. Advocates of “Ban the Box” measures are celebrating the victory, though believe much work remains to be done before those with criminal records truly have a fair shot at finding gainful employment.

Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “The person that called the police doesn’t want to press charges, can I still be prosecuted?”

A man in Italy found himself in the odd situation of having a conviction overturned not because he didn’t do the crime, but because the court decided he shouldn’t have been punished for it in the first place. The case, oddly similar to the storyline of “Les Miserables”, has garnered substantial attention both in Italy and abroad, with experts debating whether the appellate court was right to throw out the conviction.